Shaun Woodward: There has undoubtedly been a great deal of suffering in communities during nearly four decades of troubles in Northern Ireland. However, it is clear that people in Northern Ireland are now living in a new era. The activities by a very small, limited number of people are being entirely condemned by every decent person north and south in Ireland. A number of things can be done to bring the communities out of the grip, in some remaining areas, of paramilitary activity, but part of that work is now the devolved responsibility of the new Administration and the Department for Social Development. I commend the work that is being done by Minister Ritchie to help those communities that are in the grip of paramilitary activity to come out of it. In the end, co-operation between all of us across the community, the Government here and the Government in Northern Ireland will ensure that we can help everyone to leave the past behind.

Shaun Woodward: I acknowledge and welcome the important work that the right hon. Gentleman does with PSNI. The PSNI budget for the next three years is a fair settlement, and it represents an increase. Let us also look at the numbers on the ground: in Northern Ireland there is one police officer for 220 of the population. We know why that was and is necessary, but I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would agree that many other Members would love their constituency to have the high number of officers that the Chief Constable in Northern Ireland enjoys. The Chief Constable needs them, but it is right that we continue to ask him to justify why we should spend so much money on the PSNI. It is money well spent, but we must ensure that there is value for money.

Shaun Woodward: My hon. Friend makes an important point. First, we must understand that because of 40 years of troubles, it has been difficult to re-engineer the Northern Ireland economy in the way that has happened in the rest of the United Kingdom over the past two or three decades. That is why public expenditure represents about 70 per cent. of Northern Ireland's economy, which compares with a figure of 41 per cent. in England and stands markedly against 34 per cent. in the Republic. He is right to draw attention to that. The new Administration in Northern Ireland has plenty of scope to regenerate their economy by allowing some of those sectors in the public area to be open to more competition from other areas than they have been in the past decade or two.

Laurence Robertson: Given that the recent Independent Monitoring Commission report identified a number of paramilitary organisations that have changed the emphasis of their activities from paramilitary to drug dealing—Oglaigh na hEireann, the Continuity Irish Republican Army, the Irish National Liberation Army, Ulster Defence Association, the Loyalist Volunteer Force and the Ulster Volunteer Force—and given that the street value of seized drugs in Northern Ireland in 2006-07 amounted to £22.5 million, what prospects does the Minister see for the devolution of policing and criminal justice?

Gordon Brown: It is what we did that matters. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman says that it does not matter what we did. What we did is important to the security of this country. It is for employers, first of all, to check whether they are employing people who are in this country illegally. That is the first responsibility. The SIA is now able to do checks of existing workers, as well as new ones. I think that the House should know that when the Bill setting up the SIA was being discussed in the House of Commons, the Conservative spokesman said:
	"The Opposition's approach to the Bill is that it should not place unnecessary, overly complex, bureaucratic or burdensome regulations"—[ Official Report, 26 March 2001; Vol. 365, c. 980.]
	The regulations were necessary to protect the security of our country.

Gordon Brown: I agree with my hon. Friend. In addition to the major reforms that are bringing about more academies, more specialist schools and more trust schools, and the reform of the curriculum with new standards and qualification authority, we are extending education maintenance allowances to enable more young people to stay on at school. We are raising the education leaving age to 18, as a result of the legislation that we are bringing before the House of Commons, for part-time and/or full-time training. At the same time, we are introducing diplomas that will have the status, we believe, to enable universities and businesses to back them. When Governments in the 1940s introduced the major education reforms—such as the 1944 Act—there was all-party consensus on them. I hope that even at this stage the Conservatives will reconsider their position, not only on education maintenance allowances and the new deal for young people, but on raising the education leaving age to 18. I hope that they will not a fall into the trap that they fell into on grammar schools. We want education for all, not educational opportunity just for a few.

Gordon Brown: In advance of the national security strategy, which will be published in the next few weeks, and following the statement by the head of MI5 about the potential threat from UK-based terrorists, I want to update the House, as I promised in July, on the measures we are taking at home to root out terrorism and strengthen the resilience of communities to resist extremist influences following the incidents of 29 June and 30 June. As everyone in this House knows, to succeed, those measures will require not just military and security resources but more policing and intelligence, and an enhanced effort to win hearts and minds.
	First of all, let me thank the police, the security services and the armed forces for their vigilance, their service and their courage in facing up to the terrorist threat. The terrorist attacks in June revolved around an attempted bomb attack on a London venue where hundreds congregated, and a vehicle bomb attack on Glasgow airport. The conclusions today of the review by Lord West on the protection of strategic infrastructure, stations, ports and airports, and other crowded places, identify a need to step up physical protection against possible vehicle bomb attacks. That will include, where judged necessary, improved security at railway stations—focusing first on our 250 busiest stations most at risk—and at airport terminals, ports and more than one hundred sensitive installations.
	The report proposes the installation of robust physical barriers as protection against vehicle bomb attacks, the nomination of vehicle exclusion zones to keep all but authorised vehicles at a safe distance, and making buildings blast resistant. While no major failures in our protective security have been identified, companies responsible for crowded places will now be given detailed and updated advice on how they can improve their resilience against attack, both by better physical protection and greater vigilance in identifying suspicious behaviour.
	New guidance will be sent to thousands of cinemas, theatres, restaurants, hotels, sporting venues and commercial centres, and all hospitals, schools and places of worship, and it will include advice on training staff to be more vigilant. Up to 160 counter-terrorism advisers will train civilian staff to identify suspect activity and to ensure premises have secure emergency exits, that CCTV footage is used to best effect, and that there are regular searches and evacuation drills. From now on, local authorities will be required as part of their performance framework to assess the measures they have taken to protect against terrorism.
	We will now work with architects and designers to encourage them to "design-in" protective security measures to new buildings, including safe areas, traffic control measures and the use of blast-resistant materials. For that advice, I am grateful for the recommendations of the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), whom I thank for his work.
	Following further work, we will report back soon on what more we need to do to strengthen security to protect against the use of hazardous substances for terrorist purposes.
	Just as we are constantly vigilant about the ways in which we can tighten our security, we must also ensure that the travelling public can go about their business in the normal way. In the most sensitive locations, for example, some large rail stations—and while doing everything to avoid inconvenience to passengers—we are planning additional screening of baggage and passenger searches.
	In the past few months at key airports, there has already been additional investment in new screening capacity and we have been able to review the one-bag-per-passenger rule. The Transport Secretary is announcing today that, as soon as we are confident that airports can handle the additional baggage safely, the restrictions on hand baggage will be progressively lifted. Starting with several airports in the new year, we will work with airport operators to ensure that all UK airports are in a position to allow passengers to fly with more than one item of hand luggage.
	The security budget, which is £2.5 billion this year, will rise to £3.5 billion in 2011. Because of the terrorist threat, the size of the Security Service, which was under 2,000 in 2001 and is 3,300 now, will rise beyond 4,000. That is twice its size of 2001.
	I can also report that we have now constituted dedicated regional counter-terrorism units, with, in total, more than 2,000 police and support staff. They are responsible for overseeing investigations into those who recruit terrorists and promote hate.
	From the Home Office budget, from now until 2011, an additional £240 million will finance counter-terrorism policing, which is focused as much on preventing the next generation of terrorists as on pursuing current targets. That will include additional funding for further training of our 3,500 neighbourhood police teams to deal with radicalisation in their local communities.
	The scale of our international effort is such that around £400 million in the next three years will be invested through the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and the British Council to tackle radicalisation and promote understanding overseas. The Government will report back on action overseas with other countries to counter extremism when we launch the full national security strategy. I can also confirm that £70 million is being invested in community projects that are dedicated to countering violent extremism. So, in total, we are now investing nearly three times as much in security compared with six years ago.
	In line with the measured way in which we responded to the terrorist incidents in June, we will seek only new powers that are essential to the fight against terrorism. The forthcoming counter-terrorism Bill, which will be introduced shortly, will include stronger sentences for terrorist-related offences and, where terrorists have served sentences, new powers for the police to continue to monitor their activities.
	Asset-freezing is an important tool in the fight against terrorists buying weapons or using money for terrorist purposes. Sophisticated evidence gathering of financial transactions can both deny terrorists finance and locate the sources of terrorist plots. Current legislation makes it difficult for us to take preventive action, so the new Bill is intended to give new powers to ensure that we can use all available information to pursue those who finance terrorist attacks.
	In addition to measures to process terrorist cases more efficiently and reduce the time between arrest and trial—including 14 new specially protected courtrooms—a single senior judge has been nominated to manage all terrorism cases. There will also be a single senior lead prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service responsible for cases relating to inciting violent extremism.
	To ensure that we protect our borders and detect possible terrorist suspects, members of the new UK border agency will have the power, from January next year, to detain people not just on suspicion of immigration offences or for customs crime but for other criminal activity, including terrorism. Powers will also be given to airline liaison officers to cancel visas when justified.
	In line with the statement that I made in July, there will be one single primary checkpoint for both passport control and customs. The UK border agency, which will have 25,000 staff in total, will now apply controls at points of entry and exit on people and goods, into and out of the UK, as well as working throughout the world. The new agency will enable us to transfer intelligence from UK operations overseas to those making visa decisions, and to check biometrics taken from visa applicants against criminal and counter-terrorism records. Further details of the new UK border agency, which has been welcomed by the Association of Chief Police Officers, are published in the Cabinet Office report issued today. This will go hand in hand with what is increasingly necessary: biometric visas for all applicants from March next year, biometric ID cards for foreign nationals introduced from the end of 2008 and a strengthening of the e-borders programme, with the contract to incorporate all passenger information awarded today.
	With repatriation arrangements for foreign terrorist suspects agreed with Jordan, Lebanon and Algeria, work is under way with a number of additional countries, with a view to signing new agreements for deportations. In addition to the nine foreign nationals recently deported under immigration powers on grounds of national security, a further 24 foreign nationals are currently subject to deportation proceedings on national security grounds and 4,000 foreign prisoners are likely to be deported this year.
	All faith communities in the UK make a huge contribution in all spheres of our national life. They are integral to our success as a society. And as we found, listening to all communities in and after June, the vast majority of people of all faiths and backgrounds condemn terrorism and the actions of terrorists. But the objective of al-Qaeda and related groups is to manipulate political and humanitarian issues in order to gain support for an agenda of murder and violence, and deliberately to maim and kill fellow human beings, including innocent women and children, irrespective of their religion. We must not allow anyone to use terrorist activities as a means to divide us or isolate those belonging to a particular faith or community.
	To deal with the challenge posed by the terrorist threat we have to do more, working with communities in our country, first, to challenge extremist propaganda and support alternative voices; secondly, to disrupt the promoters of violent extremism by strengthening our institutions and supporting individuals who may be being targeted; thirdly, to increase the capacity of communities to resist and reject violent extremism; and fourthly, to address issues of concern exploited by ideologues, where by emphasising our shared values across communities we can both celebrate and act upon what unites us. This will be achieved not by one single programme or initiative and it will not be achieved overnight. It is a generational challenge that requires sustained work over the long term, through a range of actions in schools, colleges, universities, faith groups and youth clubs, by engaging young people through the media, culture, sport and arts, and by acting against extremist influences operating on the internet and in institutions from prisons and universities to some places of worship.
	As part of our intensifying measures to isolate extremists, a new unit bringing together police and security intelligence and research will identify, analyse and assess not just the inner circle of extremist groups, but those at risk of falling under their influence, and share their advice and insights. Building on initial roadshows of mainstream Islamic scholarship round the country, which have already attracted more than 70,000 young people, and an internet site which has reached far more, we will sponsor at home and then abroad, including for the first time in Pakistan, a series of national and local events to counter extremist propaganda. The next stage will draw upon the work commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council, King's College and the Royal Society for Arts on how best to deal with radicalisation at home and abroad.
	One central issue is how to balance extremist views supporting terrorism that appear on the internet and in the media. The Home Secretary is inviting the largest global technology and internet companies to work together to ensure that our best technical expertise is galvanised to counter online incitement to hatred. I also welcome the decision by the Royal Television Society and the Society of Editors to hold a conference on how to ensure accurate and balanced reporting of issues related to terrorism in the media. To ensure that charities are not exploited by extremists, a new unit in the Charity Commission will strengthen governance and accountability of charities.
	A specialist unit in the Prison Service will be tasked with stopping extremists from using prison networks to plot future activities. And because young people in the criminal justice system are especially vulnerable to extremist influence, we are making further funding available through the Youth Justice Board, the National Offender Management Service and the many voluntary agencies that work with young people to support young people who may be targeted for recruitment by extremist groups. Following evidence that some of those involved in promoting violent extremism have made use of outdoor activity centres and sports facilities, we are working with Sport England to provide guidance for the sector to ensure that, where possible, these facilities are not abused. Backed up by a new website to share best practice, a new board of experts will advise local authorities, local councillors and local communities on tackling radicalisation and those promoting hate.
	We have had mosques in the UK for more than 100 years, serving local communities well. These communities tell me that mosques have a much wider role, beyond their core spiritual purpose, in providing services, educating young people and building cohesion, and the majority already work very hard to reject violent extremism. As the newly constituted Mosques and Imams National Advisory Body recognises, however, the governance of mosques could be strengthened to help to serve communities better and to challenge those who feed hate. Our consultations with Muslim communities emphasise the importance of the training of imams—including English language requirements—and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government will be announcing an independent review to examine, with the communities, how to build the capacity of Islamic seminaries, learning from other faith communities as well as from experience overseas.
	In addition to updated advice for universities on how to deal with extremism on campus, the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills and the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education will invite universities to lead a debate on how we maintain academic freedom while ensuring that extremists can never stifle debate or impose their views. We will also consult on how to support further education colleges as well as universities.
	The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is working with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to agree a common approach to deal with the inflammatory and extremist material that some seek to distribute through public libraries, while also of course protecting freedom of speech.
	We know that young people of school age can be exposed to extremist messages. The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families will be convening a new forum of head teachers to advise on what more we can do to protect young people and to build bridges across communities. To ensure that young people have the opportunity to learn about diversity and faith in modern Britain, we will work in partnership with religious education teachers to promote the national framework for teaching religious education in schools, including making sure that children learn about all faiths. An advisory group will work with local communities to support the citizenship education classes run by mosque schools in Bradford and elsewhere. I can announce that one essential part of this will be to twin schools of different faiths through our £2 million school linking programme, supported by the school linking network.
	I am also announcing today a youth panel to advise the Government, learning from youth projects in different parts of the country which all enable young people to debate and discuss issues of concern, as does the work of the Youth Parliament, which has been running debates.
	We are sponsoring and encouraging a series of national and local mentoring programmes for young people, including a business in the community Muslim mentoring programme, new leadership training, and local youth leadership schemes in Blackburn, Waltham Forest, Leeds, and in partnership with Tottenham in Haringey. After discussion with Muslim women, a new advisory group has been set up by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which will advise on the access of women to mosques and their management committees.
	It is by seeking to build on shared interests and shared values that we will isolate extremists and foster understanding across faiths. Following the recent remarkable letter by 138 Muslim scholars from a diversity of traditions within Islam, which paid tribute to the common roots of Islam, Christianity and Judaism and called for deeper dialogue, we stand ready to support new facilities for multi-faith scholarship in Britain. A Green Paper will be published to encourage inter-faith groups to come together in every constituency of the country. I am also inviting the Higher Education Funding Council to investigate the idea of setting up in Britain a European centre of excellence for Islamic studies.
	We will have joint work with the French and German Governments on building an appreciation of the Islamic and Muslim heritage across Britain and Europe. Arts Council England, the Tate gallery, the Victoria and Albert museum and the British Library will all be taking forward projects to promote greater understanding. And, just as the British Council is connecting young people across the world through school twinning and volunteering exchanges, I am announcing that we will finance a rising number of young people from all faith communities to volunteer overseas.
	The intercept review will report in January. We believe that consensus now exists on post-charge questioning, and the Home Secretary is beginning a new round of consultations with parties and communities on detailed proposals on pre-charge detention, on which we believe that we can establish an all-party consensus. There is no greater priority than the safety and security of our people, and building the strongest possible relationships across all faiths and communities. I believe that it is possible, through the actions that we are proposing, to build a stronger consensus in Britain that will both root out terrorist extremism and build more vibrant and cohesive communities.
	I commend this statement to the House.

David Cameron: First, let me welcome the Prime Minister's statement. I am absolutely convinced that the terrorist threat we face today is of a completely different order from those we have faced in the past. As a nation, we need the hard-nosed defence of our liberties. The Prime Minister started by mentioning his national security approach and I have to say that we back it. We back the idea of a national security strategy and a national security committee. They were all proposed and adopted in our policy review earlier this year.
	As I listened to the statement, I noted a number of good ideas—from school twinning and a mosque commission to post-charge interview—that I am glad to say the Prime Minister has adopted. We are delighted that we are providing those good ideas and that the Prime Minister is taking them on. I have to say that there is one slight difference on the Opposition side: when we have good ideas, I do occasionally allow other Front-Bench Members to announce them. Perhaps that is another good idea for him to take on.
	On the broader issues of security raised in today's statement, we have three particular areas of concern. First, on securing our borders, the Prime Minister talks about a border force. Will he confirm that his proposals do not include the police, so it cannot be a proper border police force, which is what we want to see? Specifically, can he tell us whether the new force will have new powers or will it have to rely on existing powers? Similarly, will it have new money or will it have to rely on existing budgets?
	The second area of concern is counter-terrorism. As I said, we welcome the Government's adoption of our proposal that it should be possible to question suspects after they have been charged. The Government have also agreed to our suggestion of a review into the use of telephone tap evidence in court. I know that the review is taking longer than expected, but will the Prime Minister confirm that there will be scope for its conclusions to be included in the terrorism Bill when it comes before the House?
	Taken together, the introduction of those two measures—post-charge interview and the use of telephone tap evidence—should, we believe, relieve the need for holding terrorist suspects for more than 28 days without charging them. On that subject, can the Prime Minister explain what happened this morning? At 8 o'clock, his security Minister, Admiral West, said on the radio, and I quote:
	"I still need to be fully convinced that we absolutely need more than 28 days".
	Those were his words. One hour later, he said, and I quote again:
	"My feeling is, yes, we need more than 28 days".
	Can the Prime Minister tell us what happened this morning? People will conclude two things: first, that Admiral West was leant on; secondly, and more worryingly, will not the episode confirm in some people's minds that when it comes to this vital and important debate, the Government are not so much concerned with the evidence as with the politics? Does not that desperately need to change?
	Turning to Admiral West's review, we welcome his proposal on security at railway stations, airports, sport stadiums and shopping centres. Given what happened on 7/7, can the Prime Minister tell us what specific steps are being taken to safeguard London underground? Can he tell us whether the cost of guarding key sites will be met from the single security budget?
	More generally—this is something that the Prime Minister did not say, but I am sure that he believes it—does he agree with me that safeguarding our country against terrorism is actually a matter for all of us and not just the Government, the police and the security services? It remains the case today, as it has always been, that if we are to win against the terrorists, everyone has to be vigilant and to play their part.
	In a wide-ranging statement, the Prime Minister covered a number of specific areas, so may I throw out some specific questions? On the single security budget, the Prime Minister talks about extra money for counter-terrorism policing. Can he clarify—I have asked the question before, but have not had an answer—whether the single security budget covers special branches up and down the country that will do vital work in fighting terrorism?
	On asset freezes, the Prime Minister says that more needs to be done on legislation. He had responsibility for that area as Chancellor for 10 years and he often told us how much had been done. Can he now tell us in more detail about the weaknesses in the system over which he presided?
	On deportations, I very much welcome the progress report on the subject. The Prime Minister spoke about the need to deport those who put our national security at risk. Does he agree that we have got to will the means as well as willing the end? If he is advised that the Human Rights Act gets in the way of deportation, will he agree to its replacement?
	On mosques, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we need to be absolutely clear that new imams coming to Britain should be able to speak English? Other countries such as Germany have taken steps to ensure that imams coming from abroad can speak the national language. Can he be specific and say whether he agrees with that?
	On the new border agency, he says that the new agency will enable the Government
	"to transfer intelligence from UK operations overseas to those making visa decisions".
	I have to ask him whether that does not happen already—and, if not, why not?
	The final area of concern that I want to address is the battle for hearts and minds. In his article in  The Sun this morning, the Prime Minister rightly talks about the need to
	"isolate Islamic extremists who... seek to manipulate and divide our society."
	He is right, but will the Government recognise that in order for that to happen, it is necessary to ban extremist groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir and Hezbollah, which do so much to foment violence? Will the Prime Minister make certain that none of the £6 million of grants from the Department for Communities and Local Government made available under its preventing violent extremism programme is going to groups within the Muslim community that have extremist or separatist agendas? So that we can check that, will he put the record of the grants in the House of Commons Library?
	In that context, can the Prime Minister explain why his Government have allowed extremists from abroad, such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Delwar Hossain Sayeedi and Matiur Rahman Nizame, into Britain. Finally, is he aware that the Irish Government recently refused entry to Ibrahim Moussawi, head of Hezbollah's viciously anti-Semitic TV station, Al-Manar? What approach will the Government take when Moussawi attempts to enter the UK to speak at a conference in early December? I would like an answer on that.
	In fighting extremism and terrorism and in securing our country, the Prime Minister will have the support of Opposition Members, but the national security strategy that we need must not only be right in theory, but effective and competent in its implementation. There is much in the statement that we support, but there is a lot of generalisation. Will the Prime Minister accept that tough action on deportation, on extremist groups and on banning preachers of hate is necessary at the heart of this strategy if it is really going to deliver?

Vincent Cable: I add my welcome to the statement. I totally agree with the Prime Minister that, as far as possible, we should proceed on national security issues on the basis of political consensus. As someone who once worked in government alongside the intelligence and security services, I have always respected their professionalism and the need for them to be properly supported.
	There is already a great deal of consensus and progress on areas where we have common ground. We welcome the progress made on post-charge questioning. Many of the ideas put forward by Lord West on building design seem, at first sight, eminently sensible and worthy of support. The Prime Minister has reported the progress on intercept evidence, for which we have argued. We have also long argued for a unified border force, and share the concern expressed about the lack of integration with the police and the danger of two forces working in parallel. Perhaps he will set out what the O'Donnell report concluded on the matter, so that we can make progress.
	Pre-charge detention remains our main concern, and the issue is not separate from that of confidence in the minority communities, about which the Prime Minister spoke at length, because it is of great concern to them. On the issue of all-party consensus, there is already substantial consensus that we should not proceed beyond the present 28 days. That consensus embraces both Houses of Parliament, the Home Affairs Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and many bodies outside. Let me quote to him the evidence of Rachel North, one of the victims of the 7/7 bombing, who had no party political axe to grind and summarised the situation admirably:
	"I have not seen anything that convinces me that longer than 28 days is needed to stop people such as...Mohammed Sidique Khan...detonating his bombs in the future...it's fundamentally important to us as a country that we do not hold people without them knowing what they're being charged with and why".
	Does the Prime Minister agree that the decision on the issue must be evidence-based? Is it not the case that of the 1,143 arrests under the Terrorism Act 2000, it has not been argued seriously in a single case that extended detention would have helped in their prosecution? Has not the Home Secretary acknowledged in parliamentary testimony that there has not yet been a single case that would have been helped by an extended period of detention?
	Does the Prime Minister agree that comparative experience is highly relevant, and that other countries with experience of dealing toughly with terrorism do not have such long periods of pre-charge detention? The United States has, I believe, two days, Turkey has seven and Spain has five. Why is Britain so fundamentally different in those respects?
	Finally, I want to ask the Prime Minister a series of specific questions, some of which are on issues that he touched on in his statement. First, on control orders, the previous Home Secretary acknowledged that the system was full of holes and that six of the controlees had absconded. Is the system to be preserved or scrapped, as it does not seem to work?
	Does the Prime Minister accept the growing volume of opinion that additional plea bargaining in terrorist cases would be useful to enable a wider range of witnesses who are peripheral to terrorist organisations giving evidence in court?
	Can the Prime Minister update us on the police radio issue, as there are reports that police radios still do not work in parts of the underground system and in many tall buildings? Will he indicate what progress has been made on that?
	Will the Prime Minister give us a report on the review of the relationship between MI5 and MI6? Clearly, they are distinct organisations with distinct mandates, but what has been done to improve information flow and co-operation between them?
	In relation to international co-operation, will the Prime Minister update us on his comments on 25 July about the co-operative work with President Sarkozy and the Germans on terrorism in Europe? Has that work advanced? In view of the crucial importance of cross-border co-operation, does he think that it was perhaps premature to have achieved an opt-out from the European treaty provisions in relation to counter-terrorism?

Gregory Campbell: May I offer the support of my colleagues and myself for many of the measures attempting to thwart international terrorism that the Prime Minister has outlined? I ask him, however, to do two things. First, will he have discussions with the First Minister in Northern Ireland and the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic in order to prevent access into the Irish Republic by international terrorists who would use it as a base to launch attacks in mainland UK? Will he also ensure that the travelling public in Northern Ireland are able to continue to go about their business in a normal way—that people will continue to be able to travel between Northern Ireland and Great Britain as between Scotland and Wales and the capital city of London?

Alistair Darling: Perhaps later on, but it would be a good idea for me to make progress— [ Interruption. ] I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman later.
	As I said earlier, the objective of the Queen's Speech is to help us meet the aspirations of the British people and to prepare for the rapidly changing new world we face. I agree with something that the shadow Chancellor said in his conference speech: we face a real competitive challenge from the emerging economies. Asia now out-produces Europe. China alone produces half the world's clothes, half the world's computers and more than half the world's digital electronics. China and India's share of world trade has more than doubled in less than 10 years and both are looking to compete at the top of the market, not at the bottom.
	The pace of change will define our world in the future. Globalisation, which is transforming the scale of the challenges we face, means that at home in the UK and across the world we must prepare and equip our country for the future. The changes are an opportunity for us. New markets for trade are opening in the emerging economies and new jobs will come from new technologies. Britain is well placed to seize those opportunities, because we have a strong and stable economy and we can make the right investments for the future.
	In the face of such changes, people rightly look to the Government whom they elect not to stand by—as Governments have done in the past with disastrous consequences—or to stand against inevitable change, but to stand with them, on their side, preparing and equipping individuals, as well as the country, for the changes ahead. That is what the measures in the Queen's Speech do. Along with the measures that I set out last month in the pre-Budget report, they will help us to meet those challenges in the future.
	The difference between us and the Tories is that we are prepared to make the necessary changes and we have the money necessary to back up the reforms—crucially in education and skills, which are essential for the future, but also in transport infrastructure. We are introducing measures to ensure secure and cleaner energy supplies and to deal with housing. We have legislative proposals on those and other things, yet the Conservatives and the shadow Chancellor have absolutely nothing to say about them.
	At a time when we need to make fundamental changes to face the challenges ahead, we would have thought that the Conservative party might have something to say; but no—absolutely nothing.

Peter Hain: The hon. Lady said that there should be give and take, and referred to Lord Turner. He supports the Bill in its entirety, as does the entire pensions industry, the CBI and many others. I am grateful for her colleagues' contribution to the issue, but what does she mean by give and take?

Julia Goldsworthy: We have a series of proposals that are readily accessible on the party's website. However, we are currently dealing with the legislative programme that the Queen's Speech outlines and I am trying to limit my remarks to that.
	All the proposals raise billions of pounds but nothing indicates a clear simplification programme. The cuts hardly increase fairness, and there is no clear statement of simplification or that it will be made on a tax neutral basis. That does not inspire confidence.
	The national insurance contributions Bill is another example of what I have described. Again, we support the principle because it makes sense for national insurance contributions and income tax thresholds to align, but there are cost implications for the amount of tax that people pay. Why could not the Treasury be up front about that? Why could not the Treasury be explicit and demonstrate that the policy is designed to make the tax system fairer and simpler, rather than being an underhand way in which to raise revenue.

Julia Goldsworthy: The amendment was mentioned in the foreign affairs debate. If the hon. Gentleman was present, he will realise that it was discussed in some detail. Today's debate is about the economy and pensions. Obviously, we will have the opportunity to discuss the matter at great length when we debate the constitutional reform treaty. The amendment will be pressed this evening, after that of the official Opposition.
	We agree with the Government about some matters. For example, we believe that the measure on dormant bank and building society accounts makes sense. However, again, I wish that the Government had done more to make their thinking explicit. Although we agree with the principle that the money should be made available for youth projects, I am worried that it has accrued over a long time and that, if it is treated as revenue, it will not go as far as or help the projects in the way in which it should. Clearly, those issues will have to be ironed out, even though we support the principle.
	I am most concerned about the Government's silence on an issue about which they have consulted widely and about which reports have been written, but as yet, no action has been taken. It is a tax that everyone pays every year, is not related to the ability to pay, and increases consistently at a rate above inflation. If the Prime Minister wants to demonstrate vision, he could do so by taking a comprehensive look at the council tax because the position of local councils is becoming increasingly unsustainable.
	The Chancellor mentioned in his pre-Budget report the fact that he was expecting the council tax to increase by up to 5 per cent. in the next three years. That rate is significantly above inflation. Today, the Conservatives let the Prime Minister and the Chancellor off the hook because they have no ideas on the matter. They have written off every other idea. For a moment yesterday, when I listened to the radio, I got excited. I thought the Conservatives might have something substantial and interesting to say. I should have known better. Even one of their council leaders when referring to the new big idea on referendums on council tax increase could say nothing better than "It's a start."
	On  The Guardian website today, Simon Jenkins said:
	"The Tories for their part lack almost as much bottle as Labour. Cameron clearly suffers the same 'Treasury capture' by George Osborne as Blair did by Brown. Yesterday he unveiled his localist big idea and it was a mouse, reviving Michael Heseltine's 1981 local plebiscites on tax levies above a centrally capped limit."
	Local government can hold referendums on whatever and whenever they want. All that does is centralise funding; it does nothing to localise funding. It does nothing to tackle problems that the Lyons report clearly identified. We need clearer action. It looks as though it is down to the Liberal Democrats to provide that vision and we are happy to do so.

Geoffrey Robinson: I do not think that there is any difference, because the shares were bought by punters in both cases. Normally, people did well out of privatisations, as the hon. Gentleman knows. We recouped some of that with the windfall tax, based on the underestimation of the sale at the time of flotation. I do not think that there was any difference, because punters who were good for their money bought equity, which is the last in the line of security, and so they should have done—I agree with him on that point. I am anxious, as he is, to see a positive resolution to this situation, but unlike him, I would prefer a sale of an ongoing business if that can be achieved.
	Interesting though that point is, I wanted to contribute to this year's Queen's Speech debate on two other areas. They figured yesterday, have recurred throughout the debates and relate to education and skills. I took the point made a moment ago by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher) that this Queen's Speech is much bolder and more significant in certain respects than it is generally given credit for. The measures and intentions on housing are a marked step for change and are probably the most important since the great house building boom of the '50s ground to a halt. Similarly, the effects on working may not be uppermost in all our thoughts, but together with the things that we have done on maternity leave and on other matters, they are fundamentally changing the life-work relationship and balance in the country, and how young married couples and others are able to organise their lives. My right hon. Friend referred to those two important issues.
	It is easy to dismiss two other measures because they will be difficult to achieve successfully. Those relate to our ambition for 18-year-olds. On the one hand, we want youngsters to be in school or in training, while on the other, a legal entitlement has been promised for apprenticeships. I should like to focus our thoughts on apprenticeships for a few minutes, if I may.
	In the annual debate about the GCSE and A-level results, when there is great national excitement and headlines in virtually every tabloid and broadsheet, the sad thing is whether we are devaluing A-level A grades, whether GCSE A grades have any meaning and whether we should not go up further to maintain the excellence of our system. Important though that is in some ways, and important as not losing our sense of direction towards excellence in the education system is, it is wrongly focused, in the sense that that is not the real problem faced in our educational system.
	The real problem is the more than 40 per cent. of people in our schools who do not aspire to university education and who do not have any clear pathway to a career. That is not improving and has not done so; it has been a characteristic of our system. I have only examined the issue since the second world war, when the Education Act 1944 was introduced and the technical schools, secondary moderns and grammar schools were set up. We tried to deal with the problem then. We tried to get the technical schools to take on the vocational courses and give them a profile and importance that reflected the proportion of our youngsters going through school who would not be attracted to a secondary education that went up to GCSEs, A-levels and university. We simply have not succeeded in this area, and if anything, things may have got worse.
	A year or so ago, an extensive labour force survey interviewed 17-year-olds. Some 20 per cent. said that they felt that they had no qualification whatsoever, and that is a telling statistic. We must do something about this. We must focus our minds on it, in the way that we have done on academy schools, to get the standards up. We are worried about the gold standard of the A-level, but let us consider the 40 per cent. of our children who I mentioned, 20 per cent. of whom, when surveyed, said that they had no qualification at all. This is happening in a world where it has become trite to say that we must face the challenge of China and the rest of Asia, and the need for skills. That is the reality that we start with. I ask myself where we have gone wrong and whether there is a deep cultural problem that never gives technical, vocational skills, even at the highest level, the sort of importance and priority that should be attached to them.
	One of the changes that we made, quite unnecessarily, that has contributed to this situation was the disbandment of the careers advisory service in schools. It was changed to Connexions to direct it towards the severely handicapped. One would not want to stop its work in that area, but the careers service was passed to local government two or three years ago, and we have not yet had a report on how it is going. We need a careers service at the earliest possible point—perhaps not by grade two, but certainly by grade four—to inform the youngsters of decent vocational alternatives to A levels that are just as good, just as important and might even result in better paid jobs in some instances. If that does not happen early in schools, the limbo between those who have a clear path to academic qualifications and the rest will remain in place. The return of the careers service would be a starting point, and that is one of the general points that I think should be included in the education and skills Bill.
	However, I am not sure that two of the other general ideas that have been mentioned will be helpful in promoting vocational training and education, and providing an alternative path of equal standing to the academic education path. The two measures are the diploma and the split of responsibility, with skills being put in with higher education and schools remaining with the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
	On the diploma, we run the risk of reinforcing the divide. I am not sure who will eventually be responsible for the diploma curriculum, but as I understand it, it will not contain any vocational element. In fact, it will be seen as an alternative route for those who cannot get straight on to the GCSE-A level-university path. The academic will again take precedence over the vocational and it will do nothing to help. I even fear—although I am sure that it is not the intention—that it will be counter-productive.
	The split in responsibility will also not be helpful, although it is a similar sort of structural change that I was arguing should not be reversed in another context a few moments ago. I cannot see how we can have the train for gain initiative—which has been successful in bringing youngsters who are in work into apprenticeships—split off from the basic apprenticeships and the arrangements for schools, to which I hope more attention and priority will be accorded. I do not know how those two areas of responsibility will overlap or how they can be co-ordinated, but the split is not particularly helpful.
	However, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families has set a bold and achievable objective for a legal entitlement to an apprenticeship for youngsters. He has not said at what stage they will have that entitlement, but I would imagine that it will be at key stage four, between 16 and 18, if not actually at 16. The great danger is that, while the aim and the vision are terrific—and the Queen's Speech has more of both than it has been given credit for so far—making the vision a reality means making specific, practical and hard changes in the provision of vocational training from the moment children enter secondary school, up to, and especially in, key stage four. One of the major problems with the present arrangements is that many children want apprenticeships, but cannot get them because the places in industry are not available. That has been a problem for a long time in this country—the argument has sometimes also been that the children are not fit for apprenticeships, and we need to tackle that—but it is beginning to show up in economies that have had more success with apprenticeships, such as Germany and Austria.

Stewart Jackson: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman's remarks with great interest, but feel that he has missed something out. As he will know from his interest in industry and commerce, we will not drive technical and vocational education forward among the 40 per cent. of young people whom he mentioned if local autonomy and power are not given to the sector skills councils,

Geoffrey Robinson: I am sorry, I mean the report by Sandy Leitch. The hon. Gentleman will know that Leitch's criticisms of the learning and skills councils were very severe. Over the next five years, an independent body—a directorate or whatever people want to call it—should be set up and charged with preparing schools and the links between schools and industry.
	A cultural change is needed in industry and in schools to prepare us for a significant increase in the number of apprenticeships. We need capacity in schools, in higher and further education and among part-time providers, as well as a willingness in industry to provide places for youngsters.
	I do not want to set up a quango; the whole House is aware of my views on quangos. There will be no jobs for the boys—nothing of that kind. It would be a prescribed, five-year task to get the country's education system ready to make a reality of the legal entitlement to an apprenticeship we shall be offering youngsters. It is a tremendous and bold offer, but it will be lost in a quagmire of councils, initiatives, consultative bodies and all the rest unless we set up a single group, headed by a director.
	The body should be independent of Government, reporting, if necessary, to both the Secretaries of State involved. It would obviously be created by Parliament, no doubt by statute, for a fixed five-year period to prepare the ground for the introduction of the legal entitlement. It would need only a small central staff, with devolution right down to schools and industry, especially small companies. It should have its own tight budget, but no extra money; the budget could be taken from all the other sectors where we spend so much—I forget how many billions a year we spend on skills. The body would report annually to Parliament so that we could monitor its progress.
	If we leave the massive changes we want in the hands of Departments, we shall end up with the situation that resulted when we introduced the new deal. The mindset and culture is such that only by extracting responsibility for the changes and making it the direct charge of an independent body shall we achieve them.

Nigel Waterson: I shall try to live up to your expectations, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to speak in the debate on the Queen's Speech. As always, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson). It seems that we grammar school boys have cornered the market in this debate, at least for the moment. He spoke with great knowledge and experience of the skills agenda, which is, as he rightly says, so important for the whole country's future.
	As I intend to speak on pensions, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not mind me reminding the House of his niche in recent British political history, for in the safe in his flat at the Grosvenor House hotel was locked the Government's plan in opposition, before the 1997 election, to carry out the raid on pension funds, which has stripped some £100 billion or more from British pension funds. So his place in history is secure, and I think that his memoirs tell us that that was what happened.
	I want to talk, as briefly as I am able to, about the pensions Bill that we are promised in the legislative programme for this Session. The main thrust of that Bill is the introduction of so-called personal accounts, following the Turner agenda of trying to reach the 7 million-plus people in this country who are not making any provision of their own for their retirement. However, the Christmas-tree effect is beginning to rear its head, whereby Ministers and civil servants of any Government are always tempted to hang other things on a Bill, knowing that they have a hard-won slot in the legislative programme. Clearly, another part of that Bill is growing by the day: the deregulation aspects on pensions, to use an umbrella term.
	Perhaps I can just touch on an issue that has attracted some excitement and comment in the media recently: the nature of the political consensus on pensions. I am personally always a bit wary about consensus if it is too cosy and too shallow, because that ends up delivering policies and legislation that do not stand the test of time and might not deliver what they are designed to do. Just to be quite clear, the official Opposition's attitude has always been the same—it has not altered one iota—and it is that consensus is not a blank cheque. We are in this for the right reasons. Clearly, any decision that is made or ducked now will have an effect 40 years or more down the road. That is the nature of pensions policy. We are also in it for more selfish reasons; it might well fall to us to implement some of the changes when in government.
	We agree on the basic direction of travel set out in the Turner report, which suggested trying to encourage people who are not saving for their retirement to start to do so, but we have rightly voiced concerns, not only our own, but those that have been expressed to us by the industry and expert independent commentators—for example, the highly regarded Pensions Policy Institute.
	As we limber up for the latest pensions Bill—the great thing about my job is that there is always another pensions Bill just around the corner—there is a danger with pensions legislation that we are fighting the last war, not the next war. I remember serving as a very young, fresh-faced Back Bencher on the Committee that considered the Pensions Act 1995, which was all about Maxwell, of course, but also about dealing with the enormous surpluses that had been building up in pension funds. Of course, we have not had to grapple with that problem too much in the past few years; but again, it might begin to appear in the not-too-distant future.
	I mention our concerns about personal accounts, and a lot of them are interconnected and relate to means-testing. At the moment, nearly half of pensioners retiring are subject to means-tested benefits, and if we carry on as we are—even the Government recognise that we cannot do so—by the middle of the century, 75 per cent. or more would be on means-tested benefits. That causes the deep problem of whether it is worth people's while to save for their retirement and whether they will be any better off, because of the widespread means-testing in the benefits system. That issue relates to advice. We back, and always have done—even before the Government did—the notion of auto-enrolment, which means that people in workplaces should automatically be enrolled into personal accounts. That has enormous advantages—not least in keeping down the costs of the scheme, an important issue.
	However, auto-enrolment also brings problems, because it will not benefit a significant minority of people who would be much better off opting out of personal accounts. Again, the Pensions Policy Institute has done excellent work on the at-risk groups in that regard. Much more thinking needs to be done on the advice that such people receive; Otto Thoresen is continuing his review into the nature of generic advice, that great oxymoron. Those people need advice about the extent to which they may be no better off because of means-testing and thought needs to be given to what can be done to reduce levels of means-testing in the system in that respect. There is a toxic mix of the most complicated pensions and benefits systems in the world.
	Another big issue for us, on which I shall touch again in a moment, is that of levelling down—the erosion of more generous existing pension provision by the introduction of personal accounts. However, I come back to the issue of less well-paid people, who may have interrupted work patterns and may be at risk by being auto-enrolled into personal accounts. Various policy options are being considered by bodies such as the PPI. There is the method of giving such people advice so that they have the information at their fingertips to make the right decision on whether to opt in or out. Suggestions have been floated that whole groups—perhaps low earners or older people—should not be auto-enrolled, but swept up in an automatic non-enrolment because they would probably not get high returns, if any, from the system. There has been much debate about increasing levels for trivial commutation and the capital disregard, but the cost of that is not insignificant: £500 million, rising perhaps to £2 billion a year.
	In the past couple of days, another proposal has been floated, again by the PPI, which is doing excellent work for B&CE, which runs an excellent niche pensions scheme within the building industry. The proposal is to have a pension-income disregard. Today may not be the day, but if Ministers have had the chance to consider that proposal, it would be useful if they gave some idea of their likely reaction to it. The basic proposal is that the first £12 a week of private pension income should be disregarded in any calculation of means-tested benefit. John Jory, the deputy chief executive of B&CE, is spot-on when he says:
	"Someone who saves for their retirement must be demonstrably better off than someone who doesn't."
	The Government's current proposals create a real danger for many people in that respect. We are talking about people with low earnings, those with broken working histories, older people with low earnings and no prior savings, the self-employed and, perhaps above all, those who are likely to be renting accommodation in retirement because of the effects of housing benefit. I have not had the chance to read the whole paper, but it seems that the cost is likely to be somewhere around £600 million on top of the existing means-tested benefits budget. The proposal would certainly reward deeper study, not only by Opposition parties but by Ministers.
	I said that I would touch briefly on deregulation—a wide term to cover a series of legislative options. Personal accounts, of course, will be the new kid on the block. However, without deterring those who should be auto-enrolled, we have to get across to people that the level of contributions inherent in personal accounts will not deliver a particularly comfortable retirement. That is where the danger of levelling down arises: employers may well think twice about doubling or nearly doubling overnight their participation rates in an existing scheme. It may make economic sense to shut the scheme—if it is not closed already, of course—and point employees in the direction of the Government-approved personal accounts scheme.
	However, we must never forget that in this country the gold standard in terms of delivering secure retirement incomes is still defined benefit schemes. We should be spending a bit more time not only on the question of how we deliver personal accounts and all the techie stuff about how they will work, but of what we can do, as a matter of public policy, to encourage sponsoring employers with existing DB schemes to keep them open, not only for existing members but even for new members. We are almost in the last chance saloon as regards DB schemes. Enormous numbers have closed in recent years—certainly since 1997. A mass of existing schemes that are still open could well move to closure unless something is done to stop the trend. In due course, the only place where we might find DB schemes is in a museum.
	A lot of work has been done by the Association of Consulting Actuaries and the Association of Pension Lawyers on risk sharing—that is, trying to change the balance between who bears the risk. All too often, employees have been moved towards defined contribution schemes where all the risk, in effect, falls on them. The Government seem to have a slight blind spot over risk sharing, which we should be considering much more seriously. Changes in the law may be required—a bit of regulation may even be needed to make it work. Also important is the work done by Fidelity in its design for what it calls DB Lite.
	On the question of removing mandatory indexation for future accruals, our position is broadly to support the Government against an unholy alliance of the Trades Union Congress and some of the tabloid newspapers. We are at a desperate point in the history of pensions where we need to take radical action—more radical than some of the suggestions by Chris Lewin and Ed Sweeney in the deregulatory review of private pensions and more radical than the Government seem intent on being in the light of those recommendations.
	Another important issue is that of normal pension age. There is no earthly use in encouraging people to work for longer because they will remain fitter for longer, or increasing the state pension age, given that some pension schemes have mechanisms that stop people from working longer and not taking their pensions.
	There is important work to be done on principles-based legislation, which we broadly support. People in the pensions industry are generally pretty grown-up and responsible, and ideally placed for that approach to legislation.
	It is no surprise that the issue of surpluses is beginning to rear up again, and that must be addressed. I am told that the Government's proposals for the Bill will include simplification of the rules on pension-sharing and divorce.
	I know that Ministers have a lot on their plate at the moment, but I urge them not to be too obsessed with the mechanics or architecture of introducing personal accounts, important though it is to get that right. We will do what we can, in a constructive and consensual way, to ensure that we end up with the right design, but there are other issues involved. There is a great risk that the introduction of personal accounts could undermine existing provision. In parallel with that, a responsible Government and Opposition must do what they can to encourage DB schemes to continue, with the genuine involvement of a lot of workers and future workers, and there is radical work to be done on how we achieve that. The Bill is an opportunity not only to bring in the personal accounts system but to take some radical, bold steps to try to ensure that the DB schemes that are still open to members can remain so for many years to come.

Barbara Keeley: I wish to support the Loyal Address and speak against the amendment because I believe that we have a programme that can enable great advances to be made in skills development.
	The Chancellor of the Exchequer referred earlier to the need for greater skills development for the economy, and he said that while we now have 9 million highly skilled jobs, we will have 14 million by 2020. He also said that while we now have 3 million to 4 million unskilled jobs in the economy, that figure will shrink to only 600,000 such jobs. Clearly, those figures have important implications for policy on employment and skills development.
	The Government have made a great deal of progress in the past 10 years in raising achievement and skills development by developing learning opportunities and creating many more apprenticeships. Indeed, while there were only 75,000 apprenticeships in 1997, there are more than 250,000 today. Completion rates of apprenticeships have increased to 63 per cent. from 24 per cent. five years ago. Success rates in further education colleges have increased to 77 per cent. from 59 per cent. five years ago. As the Leitch review told us, apprenticeships are crucial if the UK is to become a world leader in skills.
	On that basis, it is right that the Government have adopted targets to increase the number of apprenticeships to 500,000, and to increase the completion rate for apprenticeships to 75 per cent. The principle of making work work is the right one, but it must work for young women as well as it does for young men. We need to take action to break down segregation based on gender, which seems to be rife in apprenticeships. Such segregation leads to a gender pay gap that begins at the age of 16 for young women.
	I am indebted to the YWCA and its campaign "More Than One Rung" for drawing my attention to the research and findings in the area of skills, apprenticeships, and low pay for young women. I would also like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble), who has supported the YWCA campaign and highlighted it for many months now.
	Years ago, apprenticeships were mainly in traditionally male-dominated trades such as building, plumbing and engineering. However, today, apprenticeships span 90 sectors of the economy, including hospitality, customer services, retail, hairdressing and health and social care, as well as the traditional areas of engineering, construction and the automotive industry. They are central to our vocational education and training system, which is why I believe we should not tolerate it if occupational segregation means that apprenticeships create and sustain patterns of pay and opportunity that discriminate against young women.
	While the number of young men and women on apprenticeships is more or less equal, the distribution across the sectors is not. Young men are much more likely to be doing advanced apprenticeships that result in them gaining higher level qualifications. Females comprise 92 per cent. and 97 per cent. of apprenticeships respectively in sectors such as hairdressing and early years care and education, while engineering, construction and automotive apprenticeships are only 3 per cent., 1 per cent. and 1 per cent. female respectively. Perhaps the best example is the electro-technical sector; it is the highest paid sector of apprenticeships, but young women make up less than 1 per cent. of its apprentices. Such segregation leads to a situation where the average female apprentice earns 26 per cent. less than a male apprentice, which translates to a £40 a week difference in pay.
	The placement of young people in specific sectors is important because 62 per cent. of apprentices continue to work for the same employer after their apprenticeship and a further 19 per cent. stay within the same sector but with a different employer. A survey of apprenticeship pay completed in 2005 showed that the lowest paid trainees were in hairdressing—92 per cent. of these apprentices are female—where the average take home pay was only £90 a week. As I mentioned earlier, the highest paid apprenticeships were in the electro-technical sector where take-home pay was £183 a week. However, even in sectors with a more even split of gender, young women can still be paid 15 per cent. less than young men.
	A further problem is that young women apprentices are less likely to be paid for overtime. According to a survey, only 52 per cent. of young women were paid for overtime compared with 83 per cent. of male apprentices. Additionally, the type of apprenticeships that young women take are less likely to lead to a higher level national vocational qualification. As the higher level NVQ is necessary to access higher education and professional programmes, which will be really needed in future, a significant difference in training is received by young men and young women.
	Taken together, the differentials in pay and the lower level of training are putting young women in a weaker economic position right at the start of their adult lives. They also have fewer opportunities to progress to jobs and careers with improved pay and prospects.
	In the sectors dominated by female apprenticeships, apprentices are more likely not to have employed status but to be on a programme-led apprenticeship. They can receive education maintenance allowance, and that has clearly made a difference. Their parents can also claim benefits for them. However, in principle, such benefits should be paid to the apprentices, and the YWCA campaign recommends that. If payments are low during an apprenticeship, it is more tempting for the young woman to sign on as unemployed instead. We are all worried about the young people who are not in education, employment or training.
	The Government have carried out work on reducing the gender pay gap with a great deal of support from Labour Members. Indeed, in recent weeks, Conservative Members have expressed new concerns about the gender pay gap and it is gratifying to Labour Members that, after many decades, decreasing the gender pay gap has all-party support. However, the size of the gender pay gap for apprentices is so worrying that it clearly needs to be tackled urgently.
	Health and social care, and early years education and care are essential work in our communities and important sectors of work for the Government. However, in the context of apprenticeships, they are sectors in which the work is not properly valued. As I said earlier, the Government plan to increase the number of young people who complete an apprenticeship. That will be more difficult for young women on the low paid apprenticeships that I described.
	Surveys by the National Foundation for Education Research showed that dissatisfaction with pay is highest among trainees, with a quarter dropping out of training, citing not earning enough money as their main reason for giving up. We must ensure that young women have better information on career choices and pay. The Equal Opportunities Commission found that two thirds of young women were not aware of differences in pay rates. It is unbelievable that people make career and job choices without understanding the pay rates that they could get in other jobs or in their current job, but it happens. Almost seven out of 10 young women would have considered a different job if they knew about different pay rates.
	The YWCA would like a duty to be placed on local authorities and other key local players such as Jobcentre Plus, Connexions and learning and skills councils to assess and fulfil the skills training and apprenticeship needs of young women. Apprenticeship employers have a key role to play. The EOC found that only half such employers had links to secondary schools and that far too little work experience was being offered to schools. That must change to give young women access to better paid apprenticeships, which mean better paid jobs when they complete them.
	The EOC also found that many young women were prepared to break out of traditional roles. Indeed, eight of 10 young women said that they would try non-traditional work. In my early career, I worked in the IT industry with IBM, which, at that time, was a non-traditional career for a woman. Initiatives such as running computer clubs for girls in school can help them get interested in different careers. Some learning and skills councils work with employers, asking them to offer interviews to atypical applicants. It is important that careers and Connexions services ensure that their advice material to young people has no gender bias.
	Children's trusts have a role to play to ensure that disadvantaged young women in particular get the chance to meet and get support from inspirational women—for example, women who are achieving in their careers, women in business and women in engineering—in their community. That could help increase their confidence and broaden their horizons. Teachers also need help and support so that they can play a role in discussing gender issues that affect work and career choices.
	The debate about women and work needs to focus not only on the glass ceilings that prevent high flying women from progressing. It should also focus on people at or near the bottom rung of employment and ensure that young women can climb the ladder to more skilled and better paid work.
	The YWCA campaign has been great in showing us that the problems of young women being trapped in low skilled jobs with no training or prospects for progression start with apprenticeships, career choices and the choice of subjects in schools, made when the young women have too little information. It is time to ensure that young women can break out of that and get proper access to skilled and better paid work.
	During the debate on the Queen's Speech, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pledged that the education and skills Bill would deliver world class skills for all. Clearly, our economy needs a more skilled workforce and I hope that, in this Session, Ministers and hon. Members can work on that and make the legislative and other changes that will help with the problems that I have outlined.

Brian Binley: I thank the hon. Lady for that contribution; she is absolutely right. It is reckoned that the relative burden of regulation and additional taxation on a micro-business can be 30 times as great as on our large plcs, which have the necessary income to pay for the expertise to deal with the problems created by the increased burdens and increased taxation. Smaller businesses do not have that income. I accept the hon. Lady's point totally, and I am pleased that it has been included in this contribution.
	The increase in the rate of corporate tax from 19 to 22 per cent. will be a massive blow to smaller businesses that want to grow. They often grow from retained profit, which is usually their only means of financing growth, especially at a time like this, when banks are being more particular about the money that they lend to the sector. Yet here we are adding a 16 per cent. increase in corporate taxes for those small businesses. I could go on, but I will not, as I want to keep brief, as you requested, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I recognise that I am beginning to eat into my time, but let me make the point that small businesses tell me—day in, day out—that the burden of corporation tax will be great and cumulative. It is a great problem.
	I could provide example after example when it comes to capital gains tax. It will hit small businesses in two ways. The first is that they are being hit hard and their pensions are being decreased by the very actions that we are told the Government will take. Secondly, entrepreneurs build businesses with an exit strategy in mind. They are the good people who create businesses and then hand them on to people who will go on to manage and grow them. Different skills are required, yet those people will face even greater difficulty.
	I would love to go on for hours, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but you would not want me to— [Interruption.] No, you would not allow me in any case! I appeal to the Government to recognise that small businesses are under massive pressure, partly because of the impact of proposed Government actions on taxation. Even at this very late moment, I urge the Government to reconsider and provide more support and confidence to a sector that our children and grandchildren as well as ourselves will rely on to meet the global challenge that we are told they will face in 10, 20 and 30 years' time.

Mark Todd: Given the subject of the debate, I should refer briefly to the health of the South Derbyshire economy. It is the area that I represent and we now have a claimant unemployment rate of only just over 1 per cent. We have a robust manufacturing base. A third of the South Derbyshire work force is employed in manufacturing, which is double the national average. The region has major companies such as Toyota, but also has many skilled Rolls-Royce and other workers employed in some of the key manufacturing businesses of our economy.
	South Derbyshire is arguably the manufacturing centre of the UK and it is also becoming an increasingly affluent place to live. It is attracting businesses, which widens the range of work available to my constituents. Much of it lies to the credit of the work force, particularly their flexibility and their ability to absorb change, but many Government measures have aided these processes, so the Government deserve some credit for that.
	I want to focus on more global issues. I am concerned that after a long period of benign circumstances in the global economy, we may face some difficulties in future. I have watched as current account imbalances in the USA have been matched by inward investment with growing doubts as to how long it can possibly be sustained. The potential consequences of those with savings and investments choosing not to place their wealth in the USA could be serious. There is little that we can do about it, but it is a real concern because of the implications for the global economy and then for our own economy, which, in being a centre for trading with the US and many other parts of the world, is a critical part of it.
	The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) touched on another important issue when he made some interesting remarks about Northern Rock. I refer to the process of financial integration in our world. First, it is important to say how positive much of that has been. We have tended to be rather complacent and accepting about what has been happening, without looking at the extraordinarily innovatory skills displayed over the past 10 to 15 years, and the ability to handle a transformation in the trading of increasingly complex products for dispersing loans around the world. One of the main benefits of that is the dispersal of risk over a much wider scale than previously.
	However, the liquidity glut that we have had for some years, which terminated rather dramatically this summer, led to complacency in the pricing of risk, as was mentioned earlier in the context of one UK bank. We have also seen a race towards the lower and lower pricing of that risk in the seeking of new business. I have been concerned about that, and the regulatory authorities and the Bank have talked about some of those risks for some time, well before the Northern Rock hit us firmly in the face with a specific example of the possible consequences. There is in part an unwillingness on the part of those who trade in such products to fully appreciate that the risk is dispersed across the life of the product. They seem to think that just because conditions seem excellent now for trading the particular item, those conditions will remain in perpetuity, or certainly for the lifetime of the loan. We can learn some salutary lessons from the experiences of the past few months in relation to understanding how risk must be priced and the consequences when it goes wrong.
	Clearly, a broader international understanding of risk management is required among regulatory bodies. Let me illustrate the scale of innovation that we have seen. In 1992, the worldwide volume of derivatives outstanding was valued at $12.1 trillion. In 15 years, that sum has grown thirtyfold. We have therefore seen a startling growth in the migration of loans around the world, and we ought to give credit to the fact that that has been achieved through incredible developments in our financial services markets and the skills of those who trade in them, and with relatively few disadvantageous consequences. We should try to look at the issues that we have faced recently in proportion—I will return to that issue in my final remarks. We have seen what happens when things go wrong in our own economy and banking system, but it is important not to overreact and ignore the context of a much longer period of stability and successful innovation in products.
	The tool sets available for assessing risk in our financial institutions have been tested recently in the UK and, I have to say, have been found wanting. I do not want to prejudge the deliberations of the Select Committee on which I serve, but I would be surprised if there were not criticisms of the way in which the Financial Services Authority carried out its function of examining the affairs of Northern Rock.
	Beyond the UK, there is also an important context. The internationally agreed frameworks for capital adequacy, such as Basel II, give inappropriate signals of the security of some financial institutions, when exposure to liquidity crises is not tested in the process at all. Northern Rock had passed the Basel II test and was about to distribute proceeds to shareholders because it thought that it did not need as much capital. Then the crisis hit. Of course, there was not a proper examination of its exposure to liquidity risk, so it did not seem to have built that into its thinking at all.
	At the UK level, the Financial Services Authority has already accepted some degree of fault in the matter. I am sure that in future we will assess test scenarios for the security of our financial systems beyond those that have been used so far.
	I want to say a little about the design of savers' guarantees, to which the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon also referred. I agree with him that it is important for us to design a savers' guarantee that correctly protects small savers who are innocents in this regard. If we protected every saving placed with a bank the potential liabilities to British taxpayers would be massive, and—this is the "moral hazard" argument which we have already heard—we would encourage mistaken behaviour in the banking community. However, the guarantee that we provide must be backed by a clear communication of its limit. I support the view that all depositors should receive a statement in bold type of the exact level of the guarantee that they are receiving when placing a saving in the hands of a particular financial institution. Such a statement should be expressed in not threatening but factual terms, so that no one can claim ignorance. As I said earlier in an intervention, I was startled at the number of people who had been putting very large sums in one institution—all their savings—without any appreciation of the risk that they continued to bear, small though it was.
	Let me end by repeating something that I said earlier: we should not overreact to the circumstances of the last few months. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon gave a very reasonable analysis of what had happened, and of the difficult decisions that had to be made. He could have gone on to explain, as I have tried to do, that there has been a generally successful regime in this country for quite some time under both parties, with relatively few failures and relatively small consequences when such failures have occurred, unpleasant though they have been for those directly involved in them.
	It would be wrong for us to respond in a typically British way by ladling vast quantities of regulatory intervention into the system in the belief that it will prevent any risk from ever arising. That is a typical response to a crisis: we immediately command others to stop the risk from occurring again. I regularly argue with constituents who say to me, "We must make sure that that never happens again". I have to tell them, "We can attempt that—we can make it less likely—but we can never say never". Ladling disproportionate intervention into the system would stifle the innovation to which I have referred, whose effects have been generally positive. It would also burden our financial sector substantially and, through that, burden the United Kingdom economy and make it less competitive.
	We must react in proportion to what we have seen. It is difficult to avoid the instinctive feeling, which I have seen in all Governments, that they can take dramatic interventionist steps to prevent a risk from ever arising; but what is required is a better understanding of the risks that we face rather than vain attempts to eliminate them altogether.

Stewart Jackson: I will not give way to the Minister because I must make some progress—if she will allow me.
	What is the situation? There is a hinterland of crime, alcohol and drug abuse, poor educational attainment, antisocial behaviour and sexual promiscuity. We have the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in western Europe. We are currently spending within the remit of social protection £100 billion per annum—£4,000 per household. That is happening under a Labour Government. We are constantly told how many more people are in work, but rarely is mention made of how many people are not in work and thereby not contributing to the economy and generating tax income for our public services.
	I wish to draw Members' attention to the increasing complexity of the welfare state, even in the past 10 years. There are now 51 separate benefit entitlements, compared with 27 in 1979. That points to a pertinent fact: less than 20 per cent. of non-pension welfare expenditure is in any way conditional on claimants seeking employment—3 per cent. in respect of jobseeker's allowance and new deal, and less than 16 per cent. in respect of tax credit expenditure. The figures are startling, and Members would be wise to take note of them. The number of people remaining on benefit for more than five years has risen by 600,000 since 1999 to 2.4 million, and 1.25 million young people are not in work or full-time education. Almost 50 per cent. of young jobseekers who leave the new deal for young people are back on benefits within 12 months, and 2.7 million people are on incapacity benefit—significantly higher than in 1979. We are told that we have a healthier country, but what we are talking about is nothing short of disguised unemployment by this Government.
	Most academics would accept that at least half of the 5.4 million welfare-dependants in this country could work if they chose to do so, but this Government have not sufficiently developed programmes and policies to enable that to happen. If people can work, why do they not choose to work? It is not because of the lack of jobs. In my constituency, the eastern region, the south-east of England and London in particular, I see that jobs are available for people to take. The sad fact is that after 10 years of a Labour Government, not taking work is a rational option for many people. Ministers know that full well.
	Recently, the permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions told the Public Accounts Committee that benefits were "non-sanctionable". That means that there are no consequences for recipients who refuse to take work. What sort of benefits system is that to have in the fourth or fifth-largest economy in the world? The failure to tackle welfare dependency is a national scandal, and in respect of benefit fraud it is unfair and unjust to those such as children in poverty who are truly in need of assistance and state benefits. The Chancellor of the Exchequer cried crocodile tears about children in poverty, but according to the DWP, child poverty rose last year by 100,000—before housing cost—to 2.8 million individuals, or 22 per cent. of children. If housing cost is taken into account, it rose by 200,000 to 3.8 million, or 30 per cent. of children.

Adam Price: Notwithstanding the direct employment benefits to the hon. Gentleman's constituency of the LNG pipeline—he and I have very different views on its wider benefits—what ideas do the Conservative party have to regenerate the wider economy in Pembrokeshire, which has some of the lowest wages in the United Kingdom? We cannot build more and more pipelines. What ideas do the Conservative party have on regional economic policy?

Sally Keeble: The scheme obviously has to be designed to meet the needs of a changing work force, particularly for the growing number of women who may have some interruptions in their careers, but increasingly short ones. It is also important to show confidence in the scheme. People should start with the assumption that it should be looked at positively, rather than thinking, "Oh, this is a rubbish thing, but people say I will be better off; it may be better just to wait". At the end of the day, that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is a difficult one to juggle, but if the scheme is constantly run down in the way that occupational and other schemes were undermined, we shall find exactly the same problem; schemes will not work properly because they will not have enough people in them.
	I should like to take up a further issue with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who I am sure will deal with it. What happens to pensioners who are on medium or modest incomes—as many of my constituents will be on retirement—and who own their own homes? There are some difficult issues about the expense of home ownership for pensioners who are asset rich and, if not poor, at least on modest means. The issue is repeatedly brought up with me by constituents, who find that they face real financial difficulties in maintaining their homes. If they sell and try to downsize, the economics of that does not work either. I am thinking particularly of people who bought the Conservative party dream and moved from the inner cities to Northampton, bought their own council homes, but now find themselves well past retirement age and facing real difficulties. They often say that although things such as Warm Front are important, they are not enough: they need to be able to release some of the equity in their homes to make them habitable, comfortable and secure for their retirement.
	Will my right hon. Friend look into this problem and see whether there is any way of providing further support—other than through the warm homes scheme, which is extremely good, but only goes so far—for pensioners in this situation with financial difficulties? It would help them if some equity could be released and put into home improvements so that they avoid the need to remortgage, which is a problem, or to go into some of the more difficult equity release schemes, which could land them in even worse financial problems. As I said, pensioners have raised this issue with me on a number of occasions—mainly those who have bought their homes, provided for their retirement and done all the right things, as it were, but who find it more difficult to manage their homes, particularly the capital costs of improvement, as they get older.
	Overall, however, the Queen's Speech contains important economic measures such as those on security of deposits and use of dormant accounts, and a large number of measures that will improve the economic performance of my constituency and the well-being of my constituents. Those measures will ensure that this Government meet the aspirations of the people in my constituency and other areas of middle England.

Philip Dunne: The hon. Gentleman is being a little kind-hearted in his interpretation of what we heard. A number of criticisms were levelled about the system. Some aspects of the tripartite system did not work well, including the fact that no joint statement was made by the three components of the system. The professor specifically criticised the Chancellor and his predecessor, the Prime Minister, for dithering and not making an announcement to back up the proposals for the lender of last resort, with a deposit guarantee at the same time.
	The hon. Gentleman will recall that the three-day interval was the main reason why the run took the time it took. Had a clear statement been made and had deposit protection been put in place at the same time as the lending facility was established, there would not have been a run on the bank. That shows that it is difficult in a tripartite system to have clarity as to who is in charge and who makes the decision. That system was set up by the Chancellor and his predecessor. Effectively, they have been fingered with some element of responsibility for that. It goes back to the issue that I was discussing earlier. When we look at competence in the stewardship of the economy, we have to face the fact that we have a set of senior Ministers in place who are presiding over muddle and confusion. I regret that that is the case, but that is the situation that we find ourselves in. I thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Chris Grayling: Is this really the best they can do—10 years after they played the song "Things can only get better" from every loudspeaker and battle bus around the country, 10 years after the Prime Minister stood up in this Chamber as Chancellor of the Exchequer and promised action on investment, skills and employment opportunities, and 10 years after he stood at the Dispatch Box promising more to help the poorest pensioners? Unfortunately, this really is the best he can do, even though he has been planning for this moment all his life—he has had 13 years longer to prepare for it than he originally planned. He has built up networks of people and organisations to help him, from the Smith Institute to Deborah Mattinson. He set up policy teams in the Treasury to help him plan his agenda for the future and his move on No. 10. He shipped teams of advisers and speechwriters in from north America to help him. Never in the history of British politics has an aspiring Prime Minister been given so long to plan his agenda for Britain, and never in the history of British politics has so much work come to so little.
	The right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher) was absolutely right to say that his party still has a real need for a distinctive vision—although I must say that it is not the only party in the House without a distinctive vision, as today's Liberal Democrat motion was so narrowly phrased that even its spokesman did not want to move it.

Chris Grayling: What a load of nonsense. My hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) gave a whole series of policies and ideas, many of which the Chancellor pinched and put into his autumn statements.
	Back in 1997, the Prime Minister made his first Budget speech, in which he set out his priorities. He told us that,
	"we must address the four weaknesses that have held us back for too long and for too many years: instability; under-investment; unemployment; and waste of talent."—[ Official Report, 2 July 1997; Vol. 297, c. 303.]
	Ten years and billions of pounds of spending later, the reality is rather different from the rhetoric. We have had the first run on a bank for 150 years. Personal and public sector borrowing is running out of control. Youth unemployment is higher than 10 years ago. The poorest pensioners are getting poorer. We have a higher proportion of children being brought up in workless households than any other country in Europe. As the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) rightly pointed out, almost 5 million people in the country are stranded on benefits. Also, the proportion of British people in work is falling.
	Whatever happened to the promises on skills and education, when one in five school leavers cannot even read or write properly? Whatever happened to the promises on investment and manufacturing when we continue to fall down the world competitiveness leagues, when employment in manufacturing continues to drop—as my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) ably pointed out—and when the Government continue to bring forward ill-thought-out changes to taxation and regulation that make it increasingly difficult to do business in this country, as my hon. Friends the Members for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley) and for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) eloquently said? Whatever happened to that so-called man of principle who stood at the Dispatch Box in this very debate 11 years ago and railed against Conservative ideas on inheritance tax? He told us then that the Conservatives were putting the interests of the privileged few ahead of the interests of the many. I wonder how many of his friends imagined back then that, as Prime Minister, he would be so panicked by a Conservative announcement on inheritance tax that he would steal the policy and claim it for his own a matter of days later. I thought he might at least wait a few months so it did not look too obvious, but our Prime Minister is clearly not a man who does well when on the back foot.
	It is interesting to look back at the Prime Minister's last speech from the Opposition Benches on a Loyal Address, which he gave just before the 1997 general election, and in which he set out all his flagship policies, demanded change and called in terms of skills for the introduction of a university for industry and for individual learning accounts—both subsequently introduced and both subsequently failed. Hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money were wasted. The hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson), a former Minister and colleague of the Prime Minister, said that the Government need to do better on skills.
	In the same speech from the Prime Minister that I mentioned, a new national employment policy was called for to tackle the issue of workless households. That was, again, subsequently introduced and billions of pounds were spent on it, but 10 years later, nearly one household in five is workless and the number of children brought up in poverty is rising. The Prime Minister also had a new savings policy, which he said would channel investment, but 10 years later, we have another fiasco. Savings have collapsed, the number of people saving for retirement is down by 2 million and 125,000 people who took the trouble to save for their retirement have been left with a fraction of what they expected, as their funds were swept away by this Government's and this Prime Minister's great pensions disaster.

Chris Grayling: I agree with my hon. Friend. I find it extraordinary that a Chancellor who gives us so much talk about enterprise does the opposite when he puts into practice the policies in which he believes.
	The absence of any measure in this Queen's Speech to help those 125,000 pensioners is one of the biggest blights on this set of proposals. Last summer, this Government sheltered behind the Parliament Act 1911 as they sank the pensions lifeboat, which Conservatives and hon. Members from both sides of this House sought to introduce to restore pensioners to a reasonable level of income in retirement. Some people are living beyond retirement with a fraction of the income that they have been promised, some are struggling with serious illness, even having to carry on working while receiving treatment to make ends meet and some are faced with the prospect of selling their homes.
	The Government's financial assistance scheme was supposed to provide such people with the help that they need. Instead, it has spent more on administration than it has paid out to pensioners, and even when it occasionally pays out money, it still offers them only a fraction of the money that they expected. In the past few months, the best that the Government have been able to offer these people is a review of the options. We are waiting with bated breath to see what Andrew Young recommends. I genuinely hope that he finds an easy solution to the problem and that this Government implement it quickly. If he does not, I say to Ministers, and to those pensioners, that we will bring back our proposals for the pensions lifeboat and we will carry on our fight to get them implemented. I have given a public commitment to implement those proposals within the first three months of the next Conservative Government, but now that the election has been postponed, those people cannot wait that long. They need help now. So let me say to a Government who are developing rather a habit of stealing ideas from the other side that they are welcome to take this one. I will personally gift wrap it and deliver it to their door if they will just get on with the job and give those pensioners the support that they need.
	Of course, the pensions debate in this Session will be much broader than that. Over the coming months, we will debate the final elements of the Government's pension reforms, the package that they have put together in the wake of the Turner report. Let us be clear that reforms to our pensions system need to be long term and they need to be able to outlast changes in Government. That is why there has been such a focus on achieving consensus on the reforms. Conservatives want the reforms to work, but I am not prepared to abandon the need for a real debate about their detail in an attempt simply to defend the principle of consensus. The reality is that there are still problems with the reforms, and they must be sorted out in the process of debating the pensions Bill.
	I have written to the Secretary of State setting out a number of concerns. The big unaddressed issue is how the package will sit alongside the system of means-testing that this Government have introduced over the past decade. The means-testing system for pensioners represents another of the Prime Minister's great U-turns, because in Opposition he railed against the idea of means-testing for pensioners and set himself the goal of eliminating it, but in Government he has established a process to draw more pensioners into means-testing than ever before. If the pensions Bill goes ahead without further modifications to how the system works, some people who save for retirement will derive no benefit from having done so.
	Labour Members know full well that setting aside a few hundred pounds a year for retirement represents a big commitment for somebody earning £12,000 a year. For that person to reach retirement and discover that they have effectively lost their savings, because their income is no greater than it would have been had they simply waited for means-testing, cannot be right. We are happy to engage in a constructive debate with Ministers about how to deal with the problem. One option might be a system in which people are able to take back part of their contributions if they reach retirement and are still below the means-testing limits. Other organisations have suggested different routes, and we have seen suggestions in the past couple of days.
	I want to see Ministers work through the options available and present them to the House so that we can debate the issue properly. If we do not deal with the problem now, when the Conservative Government that we intend to form introduce the reforms in 2012, they will not work as well as they should. If some people are in danger of losing out, the story will be written whatever I say and whatever the Secretary of State says. The story will be written of people moving in and out of work or people who do not own their own homes putting aside money for retirement, reaching retirement age and seeing their friends who did not save getting exactly the same income in retirement.
	In a society in which people have a propensity not to save, many will use that fact as an alibi for opting out. As a result, personal accounts may struggle to get off the ground. If that happens, the cost to future generations of taxpayers of pension provision is bound to rise. If the Government put their head in the sand on the issue, their successors will have a big price to pay. We have already seen one major pension reform—stakeholder pensions—fail to deliver that the Government promised. We cannot afford for that to happen again, which is why I will not shirk from challenging the Government over the flaws in their plans. It is why I will fight to ensure that the changes that are needed are put into place now. We should not have to wait for a change of Government to get it right.

Chris Grayling: I accept the spirit of that intervention and I suggest that we work through the detail in Committee. I would be delighted if the Government would propose a different package that achieved the same goal. The issue is sorting out the pensioners, and how we do it can be a different creature—but let us at least do it.
	The Queen's Speech was born of political expediency, not a vision for a better Britain. It was all about Gordon knows best, and not about the British people knowing best. Of course there are some things in it that we welcome, such as the support for youth projects, and the measures on climate change and deposit insurance. But too much of it is a rehash of the failed messages of the past 10 years. Indeed, Ministers sometimes appear to have forgotten just how long they have actually been in power. That is why we keep hearing them giving history lessons and trying to pass the buck back to the past. Do not they realise that there comes a time when Governments have to take responsibility when things do not work out? Do not they realise that the first-time voters of 2010 were five years old when they came to power? Do not they realise just how absurd they sound when they try to create alibis that are more than a decade old to excuse the waste and the failings of this Government?
	Debates on the Loyal Address have always provided Oppositions with an opportunity to lay bare the failings of a dying Government. In the debate on the same subject 11 years ago, the present Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and laid into his opponents. I wonder whether he could ever have realised how appropriate his words would prove to be when repeated by his future opponents to describe the failings of his exhausted Government. He said:
	"The Queen's Speech shows that, whether it is education, law and order or the economy, none of the problems that the country faces can be solved by the Government. Problems will be camouflaged, disguised, made the subject of U-turns, and exploited for narrow party political ends. The Government may even try to throw money at them, but they will never solve the fundamental problems. No amount of propaganda, no Saatchi and Saatchi billboard campaigns, no selective use of statistics and no U-turns could disguise the fact that the Government offer the country only drift, which is damaging our national interests. They no longer have any purpose or direction in solving the problems we face.
	Nothing now can be sorted out by these men and women...They should do now what they should have done long ago: they should put their record of failure before the British people, and face a general election which they will lose."—[ Official Report, 30 October 1996; Vol. 284, c. 668-9.]

Peter Hain: The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) made a speech of typical bluster, uncosted spending commitments and what sounded suspiciously like an intention to vote against the pension Bill and to abolish pension credit.
	First, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) on moving the Loyal Address. He made a typically pugnacious and witty speech, such as we have come to expect from him.
	After five days of debate on the Queen's Speech, the Opposition have tried desperately to assert that they would be so much better in government next time than they were last time. Yes, last time they allowed inflation to reach 9.5 per cent. They raised interest rates to a full 15 per cent. They managed to push the claimant count up to 3 million. They tripled the numbers of those on incapacity benefit and cemented the sick note into the foundations of the British economy. They left one in three children in poverty, which was the worst of almost every industrialised country. They left 1 million more pensioners in relative poverty than there are today. However, that was then. The Opposition promise that they will be better now. They will not, because they cannot. Fundamentally, they have not changed because they cannot. They are still peddling uncosted promises to spend more and tax less, magically all at once. Those are the same old failed policies all over again: boom and bust is in the Tory DNA.
	Only Labour recognises the long-term challenges facing the country, and only Labour has set the policies to meet them. They are policies of economic stability to produce unprecedented year-on-year economic growth, to anchor inflation at 2 per cent. and to produce the lowest mortgage rates since the 1950s. Those policies have put 29.2 million people in work, more than ever before, with 2.8 million more people in jobs than in 1997. They have caused the number of those on jobseeker's allowance and the number of lone parents on income support to come down. For the first time in two decades, the number of those on incapacity benefit has fallen. One million claimants have come off key out-of-work benefits since 1997 and more are coming off benefit and going into work every day.
	That shows concrete, credible Labour success against Tory failure in the past and shallow Tory spin today. For the first time, we can aim at genuine full employment, defined not just by low unemployment but by high employment based on radical reductions in the benefit mountain that we inherited from the Tories. Yes, there will be thousands more opportunities for British benefit claimants to become British workers by taking British jobs.
	I welcome the speech made by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy), perhaps her first in her position. I have to point out, gently, that her speech was mainly distinguished by being pole-axed by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), whose question she completely failed to answer. I wonder whether her critique of means-testing means that she is opposed to the pension credit. I caution the hon. Lady about advocating a local income tax as it completely stymied her colleague, the former Member for Guildford, who unsuccessfully advocated that policy against the Tories at the last election.
	I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher) for his praise for a "good" Queen's Speech, as he called it—after making a number of other points.
	I was interested in the contribution of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples), especially his interesting points about Northern Rock. He said that he had a lot of sympathy with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and with the Governor of the Bank of England, not least because the hon. Gentleman is one of the few Members to have gone through a similar experience, when he was in government in the 1990s. His speech contrasted starkly with the glib opportunism and shallowness of the shadow Chancellor whose posturing attacks over Northern Rock have cut absolutely no ice in the City or with the electorate.

Peter Hain: The Chancellor explained the position—it comes from the Bank of England.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson) made some points about the importance of skills and apprenticeships. He was absolutely spot-on when he said that we need a major cultural shift to make sure that vocational qualifications have the same status as academic ones. The Government completely agree.
	The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) spoke from the Back Benches, although he has now resumed his place on the Front Bench. He made a thoughtful speech about pensions. He said that he favoured consensus but he would not give the Government a blank cheque. That is a fair point. His comments contrasted with the headline-grabbing rhetoric of his colleague, the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Eastbourne for his supportive comments on the deregulatory review. As he says, we need a secure future for defined benefit schemes.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley) was rightly concerned about gender segregation. She referred to the problems in apprenticeships, where young girls are encouraged to go for hairdressing rather than taking greater opportunities for higher-paying jobs such as plumbing or engineering.
	I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on his well-informed points about risk-based understanding of regulation. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) made a devastating exposure of mistaken Tory criticism of Labour Budgets and policies, to which the shadow Chancellor should have listened, had he been in the Chamber. My hon. Friend speaks with real authority on the problems of drugs and welfare dependency, and our legacy from 18 years of miserable Tory rule.
	When the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) spoke about his constituency, it was completely unrecognisable. I remember Pembrokeshire during the early 1990s. I remember an economy devastated by Conservative policies, but it has now been rescued and Pembrokeshire is one of the best-performing small business areas anywhere in the UK.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) made some good points about 16 and 17-year-olds in the NEETs category—not in education, employment or training. That is why we have announced a fast-track programme to get 16, 17 and 18-year-old youngsters into jobs or job preparation schemes as soon as possible.
	On youth unemployment, the claimant count for 18 to 24-year-olds has gone down by 146,000 since we came to power. I remember the massive mountain of young people with no hope of a job under the Tories. We have put that right.
	The hon. Members for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley) and for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) made a number of points about capital gains tax. At 18 per cent. we have one of the lowest rates of capital gains tax anywhere in the world; it is very competitive and half the headline rate we inherited from the Tories.
	Where the Tories stand for injustice and tax cuts for a few super-rich, the Government stand for social justice and fair taxes for all. Nowhere is the dividing line between Labour justice and Tory injustice starker than on welfare reform. Where our policies are the envy of the world, the Tories are now promising to import the failed American model of Wisconsin—as was advocated by the hon. Members for Epsom and Ewell and for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson)—where welfare reform had lone mothers working or training when their children were 12 weeks old. The Wisconsin model of welfare reform resulted in rising poverty and a worryingly disproportionate impact on black and Hispanic communities. The Wisconsin model was also plagued by fraud, which shovelled thousands on to long-term sick and disability benefits and delivered a real reduction in benefit claimants of only 15 per cent.—a smaller reduction than we have delivered as a Labour Government since 1997. The Tories can have Wisconsin. We will stick by our commitment to full employment and reducing benefit dependency, while eradicating child poverty by 2020.
	We will also stick by our commitment to justice for pensioners, including those robbed of their pensions, with assistance under the finance assistance scheme. Given the challenge of an ageing society, we are committed to a new pensions settlement that will last for future generations. We have already introduced changes to reform and simplify the state pensions system, re-linking the state pension with earnings to limit means-testing and securing justice in pensions for women and carers. Now, through the pensions Bill, we will introduce a new system of low-cost personal accounts for millions of people currently without a workplace pension, with employers auto-enrolling workers into workplace pensions and a minimum compulsory employer contribution.
	If this new settlement is to last, it must be based on a broad consensus, encompassing individuals, employers and the Government and spanning the party political divide. Yet just as everyone thought that that consensus had been won, the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell broke with the position advocated by his predecessor and declared that he is willing to wreck that consensus, thus risking misery for the 7 million people who are currently not saving enough. His position has caused widespread dismay, from the TUC to Age Concern, Help the Aged, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the National Association of Pension Funds, the Engineering Employers Federation and the CBI. As they all recognise, that consensus
	"has been hard won, and should not lightly be thrown away."
	I urge the hon. Gentleman to reconsider his position.

Peter Hain: I do not have time.
	It is becoming increasingly clear that the Conservative party has been reverting to type on a whole range of issues. The right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) is articulate, but I fear that the former prospective Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis is authentic. We should not be surprised. They have not changed. Under the Cameron respray are the same old Tories, handing £1 billion of inheritance tax savings to a handful of the super-rich, while taking the dubious, dodgy millions from Lord Ashcroft to try to buy votes in marginal seats.
	We are the Government of change: change for a Britain of rising prosperity, more social justice and rock-solid economic stability, with better pensions, more houses, secure energy, higher employment, a boost for youth services funding and being tough on security, replacing a failed Tory Child Support Agency and giving new opportunities to 16 and 17-year-olds to remain in education until they reach the age of 18, go into full-time training or employment. All those opportunities and more were provided by the policies set out in the Queen's Speech. We are the Government who are putting forward a series of major reforms and changes that we will take forward in the coming parliamentary Session. The Queen's Speech sets us on that path for change, and I commend it to the House.

John Heppell: I beg leave to present the petition of Rebecca Anderson on behalf of the customers of Carrington post office, Nottingham. They are my constituents, who are surprised that the selection criteria for post office branches should mean that a popular, profitable and highly performing branch should be selected for closure, especially when there is no realistic alternative.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of Rebecca Anderson on behalf of the customers of Carrington Post Office, Nottingham,
	Declares that the selection criteria of Post Office branches that are proposed for closure have not taken into account the economic and social impact these closures will affect. This has resulted in one of the top 25 performing branches in the Nottingham area being proposed for closure. Each proposed branch should be comprehensively and accurately assessed. The Petitioners have evidence that this has not been done so far.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to review the restructuring process with Post Office Ltd with a view to protecting commercially viable branches from being closed; and further urge the Government to ask Post Office Ltd to enter in public meetings where these are requested by the local communities.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000050]

John McDonnell: The story of the tragedy of Her Majesty's submarine Affray begins on 16 April 1951, when she made her way into the English channel with 75 officers and ratings on board, dived, and never again resurfaced. To this day questions remain about why the Affray was lost. Not knowing what happens still lies heavily on the surviving families of her crew, who bear to this day, 56 years later, the sadness and sense of loss suffered when their loved ones failed to return home.
	One of those families was that of Able Seaman George—known as Ginger—Leakey, who lived in the Hayes constituency. He joined the Royal Navy in 1945 and a year later volunteered to serve on submarines. It is a tragic irony that he was never meant to sail on the Affray that day. He was on official shore leave visiting his wife Eileen who was expecting their second child. However, he received an urgent telegram summoning him back to his boat as another member of the crew had been judged unfit to serve. The daughter who Able Seaman Leakey would never see is my constituent, Mrs. Georgina Gander, who has joined us in Parliament today to witness this evening's debate.
	The purpose of the debate is to seek answers to the questions that Mrs. Gander and others still ask about the reasons for the loss of the Affray. She and I are indebted to the research undertaken by the journalist and author Alan Gallop, whose research into this incident has recently been published in the book "Subsmash".
	HM Submarine Affray was an A-class submarine completed by Cammell Laird for the Royal Navy and accepted into service in May 1946. The A-class subs were built for service in distant conflicts such as the far east. They could dive to a depth of 500 ft and deeper if necessary without risk of their hull collapsing. They accommodated a crew of up to 61 in peacetime and 66 in wartime conditions.
	From the outset it appears from the records that the Affray was beset with mechanical problems that disrupted her service, including a battery that flooded without warning during trials, a further new battery being required four months after accepted into service, defects in a starboard supercharger and air compressor when en route to Australia, excessive wear found to the astern bushes requiring work in dock in Sydney and Colombo, and a partial refit needed in Singapore.
	By 1950, the submarine had sailed 51,000 miles across the globe. She has been described as an exhausted boat, badly in need of substantial repairs. On 8 May 1950, she entered Portsmouth dockyard for a major refit. During the period in Portsmouth, experienced crew expressed serious concerns about the Affray's mechanical and structural condition. Chief Petty Officer David Bennington wrote to his father that
	"As far as I can see these engines have had their time...I shouldn't be surprised if this boat pays off and went into reserve."
	After one exercise he describes how
	"one engine fell over"—
	that is, broke down—
	"and we limped in on one and just as we arrived in the other one went...I think that this boat is just about finished."
	Another time he wrote:
	"She leaks like a sieve and when doing a deep dive the other day the water poured into the engine room faster than we could keep it out, so we had to surface with all speed."
	In January 1950, a snort mast was fitted to the Affray. That device was a long steel tube fitted to the hull serving as a snorkel which when raised allowed the submarine to increase the amount of time it could remain under water. The mast had a head valve at its top to prevent the entry of sea water when raised and a large valve where that induction system entered the sub's engine room. Leading stoker mechanic William Day was responsible for raising and lowering the snort mast. He listed defects encountered on exercise, saying that
	"as soon as we surfaced from snorting there was always a lot of water in the engine."
	During the refit at Portsmouth there were reported hostilities between the non-naval staff working on the sub and service personnel, and repair and maintenance work took longer than expected. There were excessive delays. During that time, oil was also found to be leaking into a battery tank.
	During that period, Lieutenant Commander John Blackburn was given command of the Affray in January 1951. He received orders on 3 April that his sub would put to sea at 1700 hours on Monday 16 April for a week-long practice war patrol in the English channel. The exercise was code-named Exercise Training Spring. The aim of the exercise was to provide trainee executive and executive officers with submarine experience at sea under wartime conditions. The sub would also carry a small number of commando cadets from the Royal Marine amphibious school at Eastney.
	The crew of the Affray worked long hours to overcome engine problems and to prepare the sub for sea by that deadline. Nevertheless, there were still concerns about its seaworthiness. First Officer Lieutenant Derek Foster shared his fears with his wife. She reported later:
	"He said he didn't want to go to sea on Monday as the submarine wasn't seaworthy."
	Despite that, on 10 April the submarine was given an updated safety certificate and ordered to sea on 11 April to test its main engines. Only half the crew were taking part, with a further 10 drawn from reserve or spare crews. No defects were found after four hours at sea, except that the yellow indicator buoy which floats to the surface as a marker in the even of sinking had come adrift. Its hatch was later secured with wire. Doubts still continued about the seaworthiness of the sub. Sergeant Jack Andrews, one of the Marines who were to be the passengers on the Affray, expressed to his brother the night before sailing that he was far from happy about taking passage on it.
	A crew of 85 officers and ratings were summoned to join the Affray on Monday 16 April, 23 more than normally carried in peacetime. Twenty-five of them joined the boat for the first time. They had no experience of working together. Thirteen ratings were then discharged because of shortage of space. Able Seaman Edward Hickman, a member of the Affray's crew, commented of the crew:
	"90 per cent. knew nothing about the boat. The old crew came off and it was more or less a new crew that was preparing to take her out."
	At 1700 hours on 16 April the Affray slipped its mooring and headed for the English channel. It was last sighted near the entrance to Portsmouth harbour passing south-easterly. At 2056 hours its captain signalled that he was diving at 2115 hours for Exercise Training Spring. That was the last signal received from the Affray.
	The sub was due to send an on-the-surface signal the following morning—17 April—between 0800 hours and 10 am. By 10.40 am, nothing had been received and at 10.45 am Captain Brown of the Submarine Flotilla alerted his flag-officer, Rear-Admiral Sidney Raw, about his anxiety for the boat's safety. Initially, it was thought that the sub was experiencing a radio transmitter problem, but by 1100 hours Rear-Admiral Raw transmitted an urgent message—Subsmash One—indicating that the safety of the Affray was in doubt. That was an immediate call to action, signalling ships and aircraft to begin the search for the Affray.
	Repeated emergency signals were sent to the Affray, but with no response. By 1255 hours every ship in the home fleet flotilla had been summoned to join the air and sea search, including the Reclaim, which was the Navy's only deep-diving and submarine rescue vessel. Foreign ships also joined to assist in the search for the Affray.
	At 2155 hours the submarine Sirdar reported that it had picked up faint signals on its ASDIC sonar listening device in the vicinity of the Affray's diving position. Hopes were raised, but they were soon dashed when no response was received from charges sent overboard to encourage any survivors to attempt escape—that was the normal procedure for signalling that ships were ready to lift any escapees from the water. The search went on, and James Callaghan—then Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, and later Prime Minister—reported to this House that over 40 surface ships and seven submarines were taking part, but with no success.
	At 1945 hours on Thursday 19 April, 69 hours after the Affray had dived for the last time, the emergency signal Subsmash was cancelled. Rear-Admiral Raw said in a message to the Admiralty:
	"The disappearance of HMS Affray is a complete mystery...not a trace of her was sighted...The cause of the disaster must have been an accident; it could not have resulted from any inherent defect in material or design."
	A limited search continued and eventually, in June, after a sweep of the sea bottom with sonar equipment and with the use of a newly invented underwater television device, the sub was found a considerable distance from where earlier soundings had identified, in an area that had been swept earlier in the initial search and rescue. All the visual evidence pointed to the fact that whatever happened to the Affray occurred very quickly, taking her crew by surprise. The snort mast was snapped off. Divers eventually raised the broken snort mast from the sea bed.
	A board of inquiry set up by the Navy to investigate the loss of the Affray heard evidence that the snapping of the snort mask resulted from metal fatigue and poor welding. The inquiry was held in secret and its papers were released only under the 30-year rule. The board followed closely the conclusions already reached by the Admiralty's First Sea Lord and Commander-in-Chief, dismissing other theories of mechanical failure, or human or drill error.
	The snort mast theory could have been proved by ascertaining whether there had been an attempt to shut off the induction valve fitted at the point where the snort entered the hull. If that was shut, the snort would not be responsible and another cause would need to be considered, possibly internal explosion. However, the site of the boat was inaccessible, and with the boat shifting it was thought too dangerous for divers to inspect.
	Doubts quickly began to emerge within the Admiralty about the snort mast theory. Some officers thought that the board had closed its eyes too quickly to other possible causes and that the theory could not be reconciled with the lack of assessed external damage to the hull of the sub. The failure to allow for the working up training of the crew pointed to a possible drill failure. Why any material failure should occur as it did was also not explained. Discussion took place with the Minister concerned over whether the sub should be raised, but that was dismissed as too difficult and costly. It was stated in Parliament that the relatives unanimously did not want the sub disturbed, but relatives later confirmed that they had never been consulted on the matter.
	In November 1951, in a statement to Parliament, James Thomas, the then new First Lord of the Admiralty, concluded:
	"there is insufficient evidence to enable me to say...why 'Affray' was lost."—[ Official Report, 14 November 1951; Vol. 493, c. 980.]
	He explained the snort theory and the possibility of a major battery explosion, which could also have been linked to a crack in the snort mast. He confirmed that the risk of failure precluded attempts to raise the sub.
	The Navy, using HMS Reclaim's divers, attempted various methods to check the snort theory, including the use of what were, at that time, primitive X-ray devices, but with no success. Continuing concerns were expressed in the Admiralty at why the Affray was sent to sea with a crew that had not been given time for working up after a protracted refit. We now know that a letter marked private and confidential was issued to Captain Hugh Browne, captain of the 5th Submarine Flotilla, which stated:
	"you made an error of judgement in sailing Affray with a training crew and folboat party embarked on a training patrol before she had been given the opportunity for the working up which was clearly desirable after her protracted refit and the many changes in her crew."
	This letter was never made public at the time, and has been discovered only recently.
	The Navy then closed its file on the Affray. Nobody took responsibility for allowing the Affray to put to sea in circumstances considered by naval staff to have been unacceptable. However, for more than 50 years questions over the Affray have not gone away, especially for the remaining relatives. The central question, of course, is why was the Affray lost. The snort mast failure theory could be resolved using today's technology to examine the sunken sub in order to determine whether the valve at the base of the snort mast was in an open or closed position. However, in 2001, the Government designated the Affray as a protected site and announced a ban on diving in order to protect the Affray and other sunken ships from disturbance by trophy hunters—that measure was supported by all across the House. Nevertheless, exceptions have been made, to enable the recovery of bullion from HMS Sussex, for example. Mounting an official dive on Affray could assist in shedding light on what happened to the boat and help in providing closure for the remaining relatives.
	A disaster appeal was launched at the time of the loss of the sub by the mayors of Portsmouth and Gosport and it gained huge support across the country and raised more than £170,000 for the relatives of the crew. That has been disbursed over the years in supporting the families. The HM Submarine Affray disaster relief fund trust remains active, but it is not publicly known how much is left in the fund and all queries to the trustees are referred to the Official Solicitor at the Public Trustee Office. No information has been forthcoming. The few remaining relatives still receive very small amounts of financial support. It is their view that any funds left should now be distributed to the relatives for whom they were originally intended and/or given to naval charities for similar deserving cases.
	I have raised several issues in this debate to which it is clearly beyond the ability of a Minister to respond in a brief, time-limited Adjournment debate. I ask the Minister, therefore, if he would agree to meet me, other interested hon. Members and the Affray relatives so that we can discuss the issues, allow the relatives to express their views and examine whether we can seek further evidence to determine what happened to those who lost their lives on board Affray. In my view, we owe nothing less to the memory of those who lost their lives so tragically in the service of their country.

Bob Ainsworth: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on securing this debate on the loss of HMS Affray in April 1951, and I acknowledge his concerns for his constituent who lost her father in that tragedy.
	As my hon. Friend said, HM Submarine Affray was an A-class submarine completed in 1946. The class had originally been designed for operations in the far east during the latter part of the second world war. The submarine used a diesel-electric power plant, with diesel engines being used for surface propulsion and charging of the batteries. The batteries powered electric motors for underwater propulsion.
	Some time after completion, Affray was fitted with a snort mast. That was a tube whose head was above water permitting the submarine to run its diesel engines while at periscope depth, reducing the chances of it being detected by surface ships or from the air.
	On 16 April 1951, Affray left Gosport on a training exercise. As well as most of her normal crew, she was carrying a training class of officers and some Royal Marines in training. My hon. Friend referred to that issue. While the captain was censured for allowing Affray to sail with officers under training and Royal Marines on board, there was no evidence that the crew was inexperienced in submarine operations. The judge of whether a ship is safe to go to sea has to be the commanding officer. In that case, he was an experienced and decorated submariner and the captain of the 5th Submarine Flotilla.
	The submarine was scheduled to carry out a series of exercises. She was scheduled to make a surfacing report by radio at 1000 hours on 17 April. That signal was not received and, consequently Operation Subsmash was ordered in accordance with standard submarine search and rescue procedure. That began at 1100 hours on the same day. Over the next few days, many ships and aircraft were involved in the search for Affray, to no effect.
	Some weeks later, the wreck was detected and identified north of the Channel islands, lying in 260 ft of water. In the succeeding months, the diving tender HMS Reclaim dived on the wreck in an attempt to discover the reasons for her loss. One of the discoveries made was that the Affray's snort mast had broken off and that that might be connected to her loss.
	A board of inquiry was convened under the presidency of Rear-Admiral R. M. Dick. It presented its interim finding to the Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, Admiral Sir Arthur Power, on 19 July 1951. He forwarded that finding to the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fraser, on the same day.
	The board considered a number of possible causes for the loss, including battery explosion, material failures, operating errors, mines and collision. Of these, material failure was considered the most likely immediate cause.
	The board of inquiry therefore concluded, with the reservation that
	"certain technical evidence and calculations will need further checking",
	that the submarine was lost due to the sudden snapping of the snort mast. It determined that that was caused by a material failure resulting from the mast's brittle condition, that the submarine was overwhelmed by the resultant rapid flooding, and that death would have come very quickly to the crew.
	The Board of Admiralty signalled the Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, on 24 July that it was by no means as certain of the cause of the loss. It asked that further diving work be carried out on the wreck to try and establish why the Affray went down. Further efforts were made but, even so, no firm conclusions could be reached and diving was abandoned in early November 1951.

Bob Ainsworth: I am not sure what my hon. Friend means by his reference to an error of judgment. Perhaps we need to talk about that matter outside the House.
	A particular point to which the investigations were directed was to ascertain the position of the snort induction valve since, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington pointed out, that would have confirmed whether the Affray was actually using the snort mast at the time of the accident.
	Meanwhile, the board of inquiry made its final report on 6 August 1951, and its conclusions were broadly similar to those of the interim inquiry. The report found that the submarine was lost because of the material failure of the snort mast, which broke off without warning. The resultant rapid influx of water resulted in the submarine dipping markedly by the stern, becoming increasingly heavy and sinking to the bottom.
	The board of inquiry report stated that the rapidity of events did not allow the release of position indication signals. It believed that the crew died rapidly, that the submarine was materially sound and that the crew had confidence in her and her captain. Finally, the report stated that the search organisation was rapidly and energetically implemented.
	On 14 November 1951, the First Lord of the Admiralty—Mr. J.P.L. Thomas, the then political head of the Royal Navy—made a statement to the House. He noted that there was no certainty as to the reasons for the loss of the Affray, although the broken snort mast might be either cause or consequence. He also stated that any attempted salvage of the Affray would take up large resources, that it might not be successful and that it would put other lives at risk. He said that he had therefore decided that no such attempt should be made. An obvious consequence of that was that any recovery of bodies could not be prudently undertaken.
	I am aware of the recently published book about the loss of the Affray, and of the suggestions that it makes. A study of those suggestions has been carried out by the naval historical branch, and it has been concluded that there is no reason to disagree with the findings of the board of inquiry.
	One suggestion made in the book is that somehow there was collusion between the First Sea Lord and the Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, while the board was still sitting. The contention is that those individuals had decided to find that the loss was due entirely to the fractured snort mast and that the outcome of that collusion was relayed to the board. However, that directly contradicts the doubt expressed by those same people about the reasons for the tragic accident, and the fact that they ordered further diving to be carried out in an attempt to ascertain more information. The allegation of collusion does not stand up and there appears to be no documentary evidence that such collusion took place.
	In 2002, the remains of the Affray were designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. In consequence, no diving or other underwater operations may take place within a defined zone around the wreck without the prior authorisation of the Secretary of State for Defence.
	Submarines of the same class as Affray have been out of service for more than three decades, and no diesel-electric submarines have been in Royal Navy service for several years. The subsequent safety record of the Royal Navy submarine service has been excellent; indeed, Affray was the last submarine lost at sea. A submarine is a complex ship operating in an environment that is intrinsically hostile, even in peacetime.
	Although it is deeply regrettable that the Affray accident resulted in such severe loss of life, including that of the father of my hon. Friend's constituent, I do not think reopening the investigation will give scope for learning significant lessons today. I hear what my hon. Friend says, but we have to balance the potential for gain in reopening the investigation with the intrusion on what is, in effect, a military grave.
	I shall consider my hon. Friend's request for a meeting, but I do not want to appear cruel or callous so I do not want to hold out hope that I am minded to reopen the investigation. After such a huge length of time, I really do not think that there is reason to do so. I shall talk to my hon. Friend after the debate about the point he raised in his intervention and will try to understand it further. I shall reflect on his request for a meeting but I do not want to promise it at this stage.